The Sin of Intercession
by schweinsty
Summary: The story of Bianchi and Romeo and Bianchi's little brother, because Tsuna wasn't the first kid to play the game of grownups. Not particularly sweet or fluffy. Rated for sex.


A.N. I wrote this over a year ago, but never migrated it over here from lj until now.

The Sin of Intercession

You're fourteen years old when your mother runs away with your father's business partner. She comes into your bedroom the morning before she leaves and sits down on your bed and gives you her favorite diamond necklace and the mother-of-pearl combs she wore in her hair on her wedding day.

"You'll look beautiful in them," she says. She touches your cheek so softly and her hands are so cold that your gut flips over in your stomach and you ask her if she's dying, blurt it out so bluntly that she laughs.

"Don't be silly," she says. She snips off a lock of your hair and smiles and kisses your forehead, and your stomach still hurts and you don't know what to say, don't know what question you can ask her that'll make her stay.

"I love you so much," she says, and walks out of your room with the clump of hair in her hands and doesn't look back.

Your father doesn't follow her when he finds out. He holes himself up in his study and tells Guiseppe to make sure he's not disturbed.

When you try to sneak in, Guiseppe hauls you back into the foyer and tells you that now's not the time. He says he'll call you when your father finishes whatever's keeping him.

You go back to your bedroom and don't bother holding your breath as you climb the stairs.

[Mother used to go shopping with her girlfriends while you were shut up with your tutors. She always brought something back for you 'until you could join the Big Girls too'. She'd sweep into the house with her cheeks and nose still pink from the cold and her scarf fluttering in the fresh cool air from outside, and she'd look around for you in the foyer (you always pretended to hide behind the chair with the cloth-covered back) and acted surprised when you ran out and hugged her. Her skirts smelled like wind, from the convertible, and you buried your nose against her leg and grinned up at her and waited for your gift.

One time she brought you a bar of expensive chocolate, and you gave half of it to Hayato. He smeared most of it on his face and hands and gobbled the rest up in seconds and ran away when you tried to make him wash.

He ran into the living room (Mother always liked to read there; you'd often climb onto the couch and fall asleep with your head on her stomach) and smiled up at Mother, spreading chubby, chocolate-covered starfish hands with squishy little dimples instead of knuckles, eyes wide and innocent above the dirty cheeks. Mother made a sour face but cleaned his face and hands off gently with some baby wipes and ruffled his hair with a laugh when he squirmed.

The next time she went out, she brought you back a necklace, and the time after that a doll, and never chocolate again. Hayato never asked to share your presents again, and you forgot about it until one of the maids told you why you had different surnames.]

Nobody thinks to check on Hayato for a couple of days.

You're busy, of course. Mother might have loved you, but she didn't bother canceling her spa appointments or her dinner dates, and Father doesn't bother, so after the first few phone calls from vicious little snoops come in, you go through her appointment book and start writing her regrets. Her stationery smells like her, soft perfume on it that gives you a headache. You focus on your penmanship and you don't feel sad, or even miss her. You feel like you do when you forget to eat lunch and drink a lot of water to fill up during lessons instead, except it's easier to concentrate.

Mrs. Cavallone calls your mother's private line when you're halfway through. She's nice; she doesn't ask too many questions, says properly sympathetic things, and accepts your explanation of 'Mother's on a trip; she and Father are trying a separation' without asking why you're the one explaining.

You don't cry, but your stomach hurts. After you hang up, you stare at the phone, and you wonder if it might be easier if Mother were dead; at least the excuses would be easier to make.

You pass by Hayato's room on your way to the kitchen. It's open, and the furniture's dusty.

He's in the pink rose guest room, of course, hunched over by the foot of the bed, tying sticks of dynamite into bundles. Your brother doesn't remember his mother very well, but he remembers the room she stayed in when she visited. Father hasn't let anyone inside it since; Mother used to snipe at him about it sometimes when she felt more bitter than usual, but Father gets what Father wants, and no one dares sneak into the hot, airless place except for Hayato.

He cringes just a little when you walk over to him. He doesn't look up at you, and his fingers don't falter on the bright red sticks.

"My mother left," you say quietly in Japanese. He used to tease you about your accent, sometimes, when you both were younger. He hasn't in years.

Hayato sneaks a look that doesn't quite make it all the way to your face. You wonder if your Japanese got better or if he's just too scared of you to joke.

"I didn't know if anyone had told you." Nobody has, of course, because nobody really talks to Hayato except you and the doctor who sometimes comes by, and you wonder how informing the family is usually handled in situations like this. iThey really should have planned this better/i, you think, and you find a laugh bubbling up from your chest to your throat to your mouth to disperse in the air between you and your brother.

His eyes narrow (his gaze makes it almost, almost up to meet yours) and he sets the bundle of dynamite down on the floor at his feet but doesn't move otherwise.

"Right," you say, because you think you should say isomething/i, but you don't know what. You turn around and walk away and don't look back at him, because you think that if you saw him looking happy now you might hate him.

"Bianchi," he blurts out when you're by the door. You hear his knee pop as he rises lithely to his feet. You grip the door frame hard and swallow and look down at the carpet and watch as it spots with tears.

"That- that sucks," Hayato says. His voice sounds rough and hesitant and painfully sincere.

The ache in your stomach clogs your throat and makes your eyes burn. You choke back a sob and bolt down the hallway and don't stop until you lock yourself inside your room.

[You usually eat supper in the dining room with Father and Mother and Hayato. Hayato used to skip out on it a lot, spend his evenings cloistered in his room with a sandwich, a glass of milk, and whatever project he was working on, or run off to the woods and practice with his dynamite.

One time he forgot there was a dinner party and ran off instead of entertaining the guests with a recital after dinner. After Benedetto dragged him back at four o'clock the next morning, Father locked Hayato in the study with him for two hours, and when Hayato came out, he was crying so hard he didn't see you kneeling by the door where you'd been trying to eavesdrop. Hayato never told you what happened; you're not quite sure he knows himself; but ever since then he bites his lips and digs his nails into his palms sometimes when he sees Father, and he never misses dinner again.

After Mother leaves, Father doesn't come to dinner for a week or three, so you eat sandwiches in the kitchen, where no one really cares if you don't dress up and wear no shoes and doodle in your notepad while you're eating, and no one bothers to wonder where your brother's gone.

The kitchen's loud with the hustling and cooking and cleaning and washing, but it feels so quiet sometimes it makes you want to fall asleep.]

Hayato comes down while you're eating that evening. He's sullen and tetchy and taciturn, and he doesn't even look at you or speak, but he pulls out a chair two seats away from you and flips through one of the chemistry textbooks he's borrowed from your room.

Your sinuses are clogged, and your head hurts from crying, and when you're half-done with your sandwich, you lay your head on the cool wooden table and close your eyes for a second. When you wake up again just a few minutes later, there's a piece of cake in place of the sandwich and a fresh glass of milk by your hand.

Hayato studiously avoids your gaze and leaves not long after, balancing his own cake and milk on the hardcover book.

You're fifteen when Romeo di Luca comes to work for your father.

"He~llo," he says with a whistle the first time he sees you. He's walking out of your father's office [waits to greet you until the door is shut], and you're walking across the foyer to the staircase, hair bobbing and heels click-clacking and everything all well and good with you, when you see him.

He's pretty. Loose dark curls, big lazy grin, and round brown eyes that don't quite leer but wander up and down your figure with appreciation impudently instead.

"You must be the boss's daughter, hmm?" He winks at you and snaps his thumbs against his jeans pockets. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime, Bianchi."

Your name drips off his tongue like molasses. Your heart beats hard and your hands grow clammy and your breath catches somewhere in your throat.

The pink doesn't fade from your cheeks for the rest of the afternoon.

He's older than you, of course. Twenty-one, or so he tells you with a smirk the next time you see him. He comes to pick you up when your moped breaks down while you're shopping.

[It's actually Hayato's moped. He's not supposed to be old enough to have one, but Father got him one for his birthday. Had it shipped all the way from Paris, where he's been working for the last six months. The letter said he picked it out himself.

Hayato barely touches the thing, once he figures out how to drive it. He keeps it in the old, abandoned stable in one of the stalls, covers it in a blanket and leaves it and tells you to knock yourself out when you tell him you're going to borrow it.]

It's raining by the time Romeo finds you, and you wait out the downpour in a little café where your mother used to come with you on Saturday mornings for hot chocolate and French pastries.

Romeo sits you down and buys you coffee, and you talk half the afternoon away. He smiles a lot and chuckles at your sarcasm, and he doesn't snap back and he doesn't ignore you, and some time during your talk his hand sneaks across the table and covers yours.

He fixes the moped when the rain stops, and you ride back home with your arms tucked around his waist and your hair flying behind you in the muggy breeze.

Your hands are shaking over his stomach, you're so nervous. He laughs at you a little, but gently so you don't really mind, and when he parks at the stables and you both get off, he leans forward to unlace your helmet, close so you can feel his breath on your chin, and you stretch up on your tiptoes and touch your lips to his.

His eyes blink down at you, and he smiles reassuringly and rubs his thumb over your cheek [so soft it makes you shiver and your skin tingles under it] and leans in for another kiss.

You're so happy when you get back to the house, you take over the kitchen and bake cookies for everyone. You take some up to Hayato, and when he opens the door [you don't stop knocking until he does] you hand him the plate and find yourself hugging him.

He squawks and makes indignant sputtering noises; his shoulders are tense and his back is knotted with stress, and his arms flap at his side, but for one moment, quick as a blink, Hayato's shoulders relax and he leans into the embrace.

And then, of course, he meets your gaze out of the corner of his eye, and he turns green and wrenches away and pukes his guts out on the rich white carpet right outside his room.

Which, considering, counts as one of the better ways your recent interactions with family members has ended.

You lose your virginity two months later.

Romeo makes a picnic basket on your anniversary and takes you out to the stables where you kissed. He's set up a checkered tablecloth with candles and cupcakes and a small, dainty vase with a rose in it

[you snuff out the candles with your fingers when he isn't looking and don't bother mentioning how he's almost set the hay on fire. It's a minor detail, really]

He tells you he cooked dinner himself, even though you both know you'll recognize the taste of your own cook's pasta. It's sweet of him, though. You have chocolate cupcakes with wine when you're done; you get frosting on your cheek, and he leans across and licks it off, and things go on from there.

It's – nice. You're not really used to touching anyone, besides him, and even with Romeo it feels strange, even something as innocuous as his hand brushing lightly over your forearm. This is much more than that; now he's not just touching, he's looking and kissing and breathing against your skin like he wants to memorize it. He stares at you reverently as he undresses you, notices you blushing when he unclasps your bra and nibbles lightly on your collarbone.

"You are so beautiful," he breathes. Your cheeks are hot, and your hands are cold but steady when you clasp them around his neck, hitch your leg around the back of his, and pull him down over you.

It doesn't hurt too much when he slides into you. Doesn't feel like much of anything at all, really, except maybe uncomfortably full. He stills for a second so you can adjust [he pants, bites his lip. He looks how you'd thought it would feel] and, when you nod, shifts his hips back, and thrusts back in. He does that for a few minutes, and it would actually be boring, but you're fascinated by his touch. His arms shake at the strain of holding himself up, but he still manages to tangle his fingers in your hair and lean down and kiss your lips and your neck and ghost his teeth over your breast.

Afterward, he cleans you off with his handkerchief and kisses the inside of your thigh. He's got one of his eyes closed, as he does when he's happy, and he makes a noise at the back of his throat and lies down on his side. You cover yourself with the red checkered table cloth and breathe in deep.

"I love you," he mutters. He holds his arms out and you slide into them, and it's warm and soft and wonderful. "I love you so much."

"Sorry it wasn't better for you." He kisses the top of your head. "I'll make it better next time."

"It's okay," You say, and mean it. "I love you too."

You haven't said that since – you don't even remember when. But it slips from your tongue as easily as if you tell it to everyone you meet.

Romeo doesn't say anything, but you can feel him smiling against your forehead. He strokes his hand down your back, rubs his knuckles into the knots, and you breathe together, in and out and in and out until his breaths go long and deep, and his hand stills.

You settle your head against his chest and listen to his heart beat, and after a while you let your eyes drift shut and fall asleep beside him.

[Hayato, of course, thinks you're crazy, but he usually does anyway so it's fairly easy to ignore him. You mostly avoid each other, which isn't that difficult in a house bigger than two football fields, and things go well. You don't tell Father about his secret stash of dynamite in the big china cabinet in one of the living rooms, and he doesn't tell Father that you're dating the hired help.

He stays in his room most of the time, and when he comes out, he slinks around the house like he doesn't want anyone to realize he still exists. You sneak into his room at night and make sure he isn't packing his backpack again; he's run away so many times before, and last time he only came back after half a year gone. You want to ask him to stay, but you know it will only drive him away faster.

You worry so much that it keeps you awake at night.]

The morning of Romeo's birthday, Dino Cavallone flies in from wherever he disappeared to two years ago. He and your father shut themselves up in the study for the entire morning, and you linger outside the door in vain; past one shocked exclamation about assassins and the Varia, all you hear is the hushed murmur of Dino and your father's voices.

Romeo corners you after lunch when you're sneaking out of Hayato's room. He wraps his arms around your shoulders and asks you what Dino's up to; naturally, you drag him into a linen closet down the hall to give him a birthday present.

You're almost done, Romeo lifting you up against the shelves with one arm wrapped around your hips while he thrusts into you erratically, his spit-slick fingers rubbing you to climax, when you hear someone stumbling up the stairs.

You muffle your moans in his shoulder and bite when you come. He hisses, but you know he likes it; he doesn't last much longer, gripping your hips with both his hands so hard his short, blunt fingernails break the skin.

He gasps and buries his mouth in your hair. He curls his fingers in it and drags them through, gently pulling apart the knots.

"So," you say. Your forehead rests, slick, against his damp cotton shirt. You lean against him until your head stops spinning and you catch your breath. "Happy birthday."

He chuckles. His breath puffs against your head. "I love you so much," he says. He backs up until he hits the shelves, and his watch glows in the dark. "So what's Dino doing here? Didn't come to see my girl, did he?"

Your hand itches to slap him, but you grin instead as you pull your thong back up your legs and jerk your short, stiff denim skirt down. "I could never love anyone but you."

He chuckles again as he slips off the condom and zips up his jeans, but it's hesitant, and you wonder if he's met Dino before.

"I heard him tell my father something about assassins," you say. "I think he's looking for the-"

Hayato's door slams shut, and someone screams something unintelligible down the hall.

"Oh," Romeo says, as his watch lights up again. "I've got to go see Benedetto about my guard shift tonight."

You open the door and make to step out, but Romeo grabs your arm. He smiles at you in the dim light from the hallway, one of his eyes shut lazily.

"Hey," he breathes. "I thought maybe I could drop by the café when I'm in town this afternoon, bring back something nice. I thought you'd like it if we celebrated with your brother this year. I know you've been wo-"

You hug him so hard his arms flail and he makes choking noises. "I love you so much," you whisper before you let him go and bounce out.

You're so happy you don't notice Dino Cavallone standing outside the closet until your head smashes into his chest.

You stand back up with a muttered 'sorry,' and hold out a hand to help him up.

"Oh!" He grins (you've known him since you were four years old, and you've never seen him talk without smilingly blindingly) at you from his sprawl on the floor. He takes your hand and rises so smoothly it's like he's made of rubber. His blond hair flips back and forth; he brushes it out of his eyes and reaches out to ruffle yours. "Little Bianchi! You're taller!"

"Dino." You brush your hair back into place and step back against the door until it clicks shut. "It's nice to see you."

Dino frowns at you and cocks his head, and your heart catches in your throat. He probably wouldn't say anything even if he'd heard you, but you'd hate to take the chance.

Father probably wouldn't take kindly to you dating the hired help, least not someone as low on the totem pole as Romeo.

The frown's gone as soon as it appears, though, and Dino's lips curl up again. "I missed you and the little bambino, Bianchi. Your father told me Hayato's room was on this floor?"

He holds out his arm, and you step forward and take it and lead him to Hayato's door. Your thighs are sticky with your come, and rub together uncomfortably as you walk.

Romeo doesn't come out again until you're gone.

He buys three cupcakes at the café, big fluffy things with gobs of frosting and brown sugar sprinkled on top; Hayato and Romeo both love them extra sweet. Romeo has a weakness for cupcakes; you tried to bake him some once, but, sadly, he's allergic to your baking. It's incredibly unfortunate.

"Do you think Hayato will like it?" You sniff at your cupcake and eye the others, sitting in plastic boxes on the kitchen table. You want to try a dab of the frosting on Hayato's to make sure it's good, but he's very – picky about you going near his food; he thinks you'll poison it just by touching.

Silly boy.

"He'll love them." Romeo leans close to you and digs his kneads his knuckles over the knots in your back, and you think – you're so lucky to have him, you feel warm and content like you haven't since Mother left.

"Why don't you go call him?" Romeo asks. "I'll get us something to drink."

You walk out the empty kitchen and push past the swinging door on your way. Benedetto passes you on your way to the stairs; he chuckles when you smile at him and says that, if you're looking for your brother, Hayato went out to the stables with a bag of skull decals to decorate his moped.

Romeo's leaning over the table when you come in, sprinkling some more brown sugar over Hayato's cupcake.

"Hey," you say. "Maybe we can-"

He jumps in shock, and the spoon jerks out of his hand, hits the floor and bounces and spills the sugar everywhere.

"Bianchi!" Romeo's face is pale, and he's thrust one hand inside his suit, where you know he keeps his pistol. "You shouldn't sneak up like that – I'll have a heart attack!"

He looks like he almost did, he's breathing so hard. You hold your hands up and grab a napkin to clean up the sugar on the floor.

"Sorry." The tiles are cool under your fingers, but the grains of sugar snag in the napkin and under your fingernails, and there's something familiar about them – something beyond the rough, gritty hardness that seeps in through your skin and makes your mouth water.

"Huh," you mutter. "It feels just like my cooking."

The thought would fly right out of your mind as quick as it comes, but Romeo backs up a step until he bumps against the chair, and he doesn't laugh.

The world grows dimmer, suddenly, and your stomach won't hold enough air for you to breathe out.

"Darling," you say, and stand and wipe the sugar from where it's digging into your knees. "Why don't you try Hayato's cupcake."

He smiles. Winks. Holds his hands out and lets his shoulders slump a little, slack and unthreatening. "Don't be silly," he says, and damn if you can't tell that smile he's pasting on is fake. "You're just imagining things."

The too-dim kitchen grays at the edges, and the emptiness of it sounds louder than a field-full of buzzing flies. You take a step forward and grip the counter top at your side. "Of course. So you shouldn't mind trying it, right?"

_He could go for his gun_, you think. _Any minute, he could go for it, and I'd shoot me if I were him, so maybe he's not lying_, and the hope burns bright like a firefly in your heart, but he backs up another step and doesn't answer, and your hope settles, and you're left with a white-knuckled certainty in the pit of your stomach, and your hands stop shaking and your sight goes clear.

"Romeo," you say. You step forward and rest your hand on his stomach. It jerks erratically under your palm, short sharp jerks of hyperventilation, and you wonder for a wild minute if he's going to faint.

He smiles down at you and puts his hand on your head. "Baby, you don't understand."

His hand is hot and sweaty, and his fingers snag in your hair.

"Bianchi," he says softly, so softly,

and he pulls your head down, hard, against the table by your hair and pushes you to the ground and runs.

You stand and stumble over a chair, and your head is spinning but Romeo's running towards the back door, probably heading for the stables to grab the moped Hayato's working on, and fuck if you're letting him anywhere near your baby brother.

He's almost at the door when you tackle him, run and dive and wrap your arms around his knees, bring him down so fast his head snaps forward and whacks against the door frame. He falls, dazed, do the ground and groans. When he doesn't move again, you loosen your grip on his knees-

-and his foot lashes out and clips your chest. The pain knocks the breath out of you, but you grip fistfuls of his denim jeans and yank him back as hard as you can. He jerks back, just enough for you to get a grip on his waist, then his hands scrabble at the doorframe, and he gains leverage and claws his way to his knees.

He's stronger than you, and taller, but you've had martial arts tutors since you were three, and you're not letting him get near Hayato unless he kills you first.

Your struggle turns into a flurry of kicks and bites and glancing punches, and you tumble back, neither of you willing to give an inch.

You manage to knock him to his knees again, and before he can get up, you grab his shoulders and lever yourself up and slam your knee into his gut. He sinks his teeth into your arm and lunges towards you, and you both slide back across the cool tile floor and crash into one of the chairs again. The impact shakes the table, and Hayato's cupcake falls to the ground near Romeo's foot and pops out of its plastic box. He turns to look, at the sound, and it's just enough.

You bury your knee in his gut and follow through with a jab to his nose that stuns him and knocks him onto his back. You kneel on his stomach, shifting to grab his arms and move them to pin them down with your knees.

He panics when he realizes he's trapped, of course. Flails his legs, tries to heave himself up, digs his fingernails into your legs, deep as he can. You let him try. You reach behind you and grab the open box and the cupcake, rub your finger lightly over it and feel the last bit of doubt leave you.

"You were going to kill Hayato," you say when he quiets down. Your voice sounds so loud in the kitchen, just it and you and Romeo and the quick, harsh breaths he's taking.

Romeo stares at you, for one long moment he just looks, and then his eyes widen like he's seeing something he's never seen before. "Baby," he says, "It was just him – they told me to kill you, too, but I couldn't, I love you so much, you have to understand, they-"

You grab your brother's cupcake and slam it up against Romeo's mouth and dig your fingers in under his chin so he can't spit it out.

He jerks his head away, but there's nowhere for him to go; you flatten your other hand over his mouth and look him in his eyes as they shoot through with blood and his body starts to convulse. He jerks, muscles spasming uncontrollably, his teeth biting down on your thumb so hard they draw blood and his hands flapping uselessly against your leg. He seizes for two full minutes while you watch, chest jerking under you so hard you think he'll knock you off, and then-

-his eyes roll up, his jaw relaxes, and his body goes slack against the floor.

It's so sudden, you expect him to pop back up again and punch you in the gut or laugh. It's eerie when he doesn't; you rock back onto your heels and stare at him, and finally take your hands off his mouth, and when you do – when you do, his mouth falls open like a doll's, and when you pick up his hand by the wrist and let it go, it just flops to the ground with a smack and doesn't move, and you realize he's dead.

His body's still warm as ever under you; you scramble off and fall, push away from him until your back hits the counter. There's bloody spit and chocolate frosting on your hands and on your arms, and bruises where his fingers latched onto your wrists as he was dying, and you hold yourself up with your shaking bloody arms and vomit.

Dino Cavallone finds you still sitting by the counter when he comes in.

You hear his shoes click-clack their way to the door, pause when he walks in, and click-clack faster until he crouches in front of you and lifts your chin to look at you.

"Hey," he says. You look him in the eyes and he looks just as normal and stupid as ever, but there's something alien too – something cruel and calculating, and you wonder who he had to kill to look like that. "Let's get you out of here, hmm, little Bianchi?"

He helps you up and lets you lean on him as he leads you out to the foyer. Romario's there, of course, and Dino snaps his fingers and tells him to clean up in the kitchen. You look back as the door swings open, but Romario's body blocks your view, and all you see is an upturned chair.

Dino takes you to one of the guest bathrooms, sits you down on a closed toilet, and cleans your arms with a washcloth.

"I thought I sensed killing intent when I saw you by the closet," he says as he soaps the fingernail gouges on your arms. "Figured it wouldn't be you, but I thought I'd keep an eye on things today. I'm sorry I couldn't get there sooner."

He really does sound sorry, too, and, either way, it doesn't make a difference; you would have killed Romeo either way.

"He tried to kill Hayato," you say with a shrug.

Dino snaps a band-aid (with cartoon horses on it) over one of the cuts. He doesn't look at you, but his hands tighten ever-so-slightly on your wrist.

"Well," he says when he finishes. "The way I see it, you noticed there was something suspicious about this boy, pretended to befriend him to find out what he was doing, and took him out when he became a threat against your brother."

You wrap your arms around your stomach and stare at the ground. Your fingers feel cold.

"And that's what I'll tell your father." Dino hooks his thumbs in his jeans pockets and smiles that stupid, normal smile of his again, and for a moment you almost wonder if you didn't just dream everything that happened.

"Thank you," you say. "I should go tell Hayato something. He doesn't – he doesn't need to know."

Dino nods, and there's that shrewd look in his eyes again, but then he pats your head and walks out, and you're alone again.

It's very quiet, being alone, so quiet that your mind starts working again, and you see Romeo's bloodshot eyes and feel the weight of his hand falling, limp, from your grasp.

You stand up so fast your head spins and go off to look for your brother before you can think of anything else.

Hayato's sitting in his mother's room, sketching, when you walk in.

"Hey," you say. He looks – whole, curled up in a side chair with his notebook on his knees, his bangs held back in a stumpy little ponytail. He looks like he always does, bony and grumpy and pale with nausea, and the kitchen seems so far away. Your stomach twists, and something in you cracks a little, and you turn around so he can't see your eyes.

"Romeo's dead." Your whisper sounds so loud in the quiet room. "They think he was poisoned."

Hayato doesn't say anything, not when you suck in a breath and end up with a sob, not when your shoulders start to shake, not when you bring your hands up to your face and start to cry.

He snaps his notebook shut and sets it aside, though, and after a few minutes, you hear him shuffle up behind you, and his arms snake tentatively around your shoulders. You cry, and he stands tall against your back, strong despite his awkward, little-brother pats on your arm and the way his chin barely hooks over your shoulder.

"I love you so much," you don't say, and Hayato hugs you tight and doesn't say it back.


End file.
